Summary

• Rotten Tomatoes' audience scores have now become part of the Popcornmeter.
• Audience scores of 90% and above that meet certain criteria can earn movies Verified Hot badges on the review aggregator site.
• Movies that are already Verified Hot include Deadpool & Wolverine, Wonka, and Twisters.

Rotten Tomatoes has implemented a huge change by adding the Popcornmeter and the Verified Hot badge. The review aggregator website has become a go-to resource for assessing the critical reception to movies and television shows since its inception in 1998. The site compiles official critics' reviews into a single percentage-based score to determine if a movie is Fresh (60% or above) or Rotten (below 60%) on the "Tomatometer," with certain titles that match specific criteria and maintain a score above 75% being deemed Certified Fresh.

However, the audience score has also become a bigger and bigger part of the Rotten Tomatoes brand. Because this score is based on reviews, it is intended to reflect what the general public thinks of the title in question, though the score has in the past been subject to review-bombing, generally for politically-motivated reasons, especially for franchise titles with diverse casts such as Captain Marvel and Disney+'s The Acolyte. To combat this, Rotten Tomatoes has implemented a review verification system to confirm that reviewers have purchased tickets for movies being reviewed through Fandango.

Rotten Tomatoes' Audience Scores Are Now Part Of The Popcornmeter

This Rebrand Complements The Tomatometer

One major element of the site's major overhaul of its audience score system is rebranding its reviews section as the Popcornmeter. This newly retitled metric will complement the critical score, which remains known as the Tomatometer, a move which seems to symbolically give the audience score a more equal standing with the critics' ratings. However, this involves much more than just renaming the metric, as it is the biggest major change to the system since the introduction of the Rotten Tomatoes verified audience score.

How The Popcornmeter Works On Rotten Tomatoes & The Different Ratings

The Popcornmeter Should Be Familiar To Longtime s

This rebrand of the Popcornmeter also comes with a complete overhaul of how the audience score is tabulated. Although the line separating the Fresh from the Rotten will remain at 60%, a review will be deemed "positive" if it is 3.5 stars out of 5 or higher, meaning that a movie with predominately 3-star reviews would ultimately be deemed Rotten. The Popcornmeter score will also not debut on the platform until it has reached a minimum threshold of reviews determined by the movie's projected box office performance. See a breakdown of that data below:

A Fresh Popcornmeter score of 60% or above will be represented by the already familiar audience score logo of a full, red popcorn bucket that is labeled "Hot." If it is a Rotten title that is below 60%, it will be represented by a green, tipped over "Stale" bucket, which will also be familiar to longtime s of the website, as both logos have been in use for some time. If the movie has not yet been released, or if it has not yet hit its threshold, it will feature a greyed-out popcorn bucket logo.

What Requirements A Movie Needs To Earn Rotten Tomatoes' Verified Hot Rating

The Rules Are More Strict Than For Certified Fresh Titles

One of the biggest new developments in this new audience score overhaul is the Verified Hot badge. Just as the Popcornmeter is an analogue to the Tomatometer, the Verified Hot badge is an analogue to the Certified Fresh badge. In order to become Verified Hot, a movie needs to have a Popcornmeter score of 90% or more from verified audience , which is 15% higher than the threshold for a movie to be considered Certified Fresh. When a movie crosses the threshold, this badge will be displayed on its page, with a golden banner beneath its "Hot" red popcorn bucket.

As the minimum score reveals, the requirements for being Verified Hot are more strict than for being Certified Fresh, possibly because audience scores see more frequent fluctuation. Other requirements for a movie to become Verified Hot include the movie being a theatrical release, which can be either a new first-run release or a repertory release of a classic title, and having a minimum number of verified ratings. Below, see how the type of release affects the minimum threshold of verified ratings for a movie to be considered Verified Hot:

Why Rotten Tomatoes Has Changed Its Audience Score To The Popcornmeter

Rotten Tomatoes Is Uplifting Their Base

According to the Rotten Tomatoes post explaining the new system, the reason for this audience score overhaul is so they can enhance the conversation surrounding their robust community of movie fans. In an attempt to "elevate that discussion," they have given this increased prominence to the Popcornmeter, which is also what has necessitated tighter strictures involving its proper regulation. Although critics and audiences agree in many cases, this will further highlight the gulf between them in many titles that are commercial successes while being critical flops.

This approach from Rotten Tomatoes is in keeping with recent culture trends, as Google recently courted controversy online by prioritizing audience scores over critic scores in searches for movies.

Which Movies Are Already Verified Hot On Rotten Tomatoes

Both Commercial And Critical Hits Are Verified Hot

Rotten Tomatoes released a list of more than 200 movies that form the first group of titles to officially be Verified Hot under the new Popcornmeter system. Many of them are titles that have already been Certified Fresh by critics, including Oscar winners such as the Indian smash hit RRR, the Japanese kaiju import Godzilla Minus One, and the Bong Joon-ho movie Parasite. Other movies with Fresh scores that are also Verified Hot include the 2024 hits Deadpool & Wolverine and Twisters as well as other contemporary titles such as Cruella and Jojo Rabbit.

Parasite won four Oscars including Best Picture and Best International Feature.

However, the first roster of Verified Hot titles also showcases the way that critics and audiences frequently diverge. There are more than two dozen movies on the list that have received splats from critics, including the controversial Blake Lively romance It Ends with Us, the Gerard Butler action movie sequel Angel Has Fallen, and the music biopics Bob Marley: One Love and Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance with Somebody. Quite a few faith-based movies including Jesus Revolution and I Still Believe are also on the roster.

This new move from Rotten Tomatoes has resulted in a diverse mixture of Verified Hot movies that interacts with the Certified Fresh roster in a unique way. While arthouse movies like Pedro Almodóvar's Pain and Glory and Céline Sciamma's Portrait of a Lady on Fire enjoy places on the list, so do blockbuster titles like The Secret Life of Pets 2 and Aladdin (2019), resulting in a unique combination that offers a great deal of insight into the broad scope of tastes boasted by the site's base.

Source: Rotten Tomatoes